


who will fall beside you, if you fall

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel/Dean Winchester Happy Ending, Fallen Angel Castiel (Supernatural), John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Minor Cassie Robinson/Dean Winchester, Minor Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Praying to Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29829984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: Dean Winchester's been loved in a lot of different ways throughout his life. He was shaped by that love, changed by the expectations and hopes and hurts of the people he cared about. He learned fear and silence and caution. But Castiel's confession, free of expectation, might undo those lessons.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 46
Kudos: 295





	who will fall beside you, if you fall

Dean was three years old and not quite steady on his feet, still, when his father took him outside to help shovel the snow. In his coat and hat he was a little duffled-up sweetheart, to whom nothing particularly bad had ever happened.

Red-cheeked and grinning, he left small bootprints in the snow.

“Come over here, Dean.” John stood behind Dean and lowered the shovel down to Dean’s height, so that they could hold it and move the snow together. Dean pressed his lips together and frowned as he followed his father’s movements. John’s coat smelled like smoke and the outdoors. They moved one, two, three, four, five big shovel-fulls.

“That’s enough for one day,” said a voice from the porch – Mary, smiling down at the two of them. John carefully lifted the shovel out of Dean’s reach, standing up to his full height. They’d managed to clear just a short stretch of the path that led up to the house.

“But Mom, there’s loads more!” Dean said, pointing to the rest of the pathway.

“Your dad can clear that. You need to come in and have some lunch,” Mary said. “Come on.”

Dean looked up to his father with wide eyes, but John put his hand on the top of Dean’s head and ruffled it so that his hat almost came off.

“Listen to your mom, Dean. In you go.”

Dean’s eyes travelled from his father’s face to his mother’s.

“There’s your favourite for dessert,” Mary said, coaxing him with a little smile.

“Yes!”

Dean made a sudden break for it towards her, running down the path he’d just helped to clear. After the crunch-crunch-crunch of the snow, the cleared pathway was hard under Dean's feet. Hard, and unexpectedly slippery.

“Whoa, there,” said John, as Dean felt his balance go, his feet skidding out from under him – and suddenly he was being lifted, one hand on either side of him. John pulled him up out of the fall, and set him back down in thick snow.

Dean blinked. It had all happened very fast.

“Next time,” John said, giving Dean a little push indoors, “I won’t catch you. You’ve got to learn, Dean.”

–––––

And now Dean was eleven years old and trailing after his father down a quiet midnight street, with a sleepy little brother in tow.

“Dad… are we nearly at the motel?”

“Nearly.”

He’d pay for that question later somehow, and Dean knew it, but because he’d asked there was a new purpose in John’s step. They didn’t stop at the liquor store that Dean knew John had been weighing going into. Walking past it, Dean felt a little break of relief in his chest. They’d get out of the cold sooner, and Sam could get to bed.

“Dean?”

Dean turned his head to look at his brother, keeping walking. Sam was wearing Dean’s coat, swimming in it, the hood pulled up and the elastic tight so only the round circle of his face was visible. It was nearly funny, but they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the humour was shaved off everything.

“Come on,” Dean said.

“I’m cold.”

“I know.” Dean cast a glance forwards at his father’s back. He lowered his voice. “It’s okay. Just a little bit longer.”

Sam made a miserable face. Their breaths were puffs of air between them. Underfoot was the hiss and crunch of melting, slushy snow.

“Can I have soup when we get there?”

“It’s late, Sammy. We’ll have something in the morning.”

“But I can’t sleep when I’m hungry…”

“Okay.” Dean cast another worried look towards his father, and then made a meaningful face at Sam when he looked back around. “I’ll find something. I think we have some of that apple juice left over.”

“That’s cold,” Sam said, but he’d quietened his voice, too. “And a drink.”

“You didn’t know?” Dean said, making sure his face was completely straight.

“Know what?”

“That’s the best part,” Dean said. “Cold drinks make you warm up faster.”

Sam narrowed his eyes, and Dean cursed internally. Every day Sam got a little smarter and a little harder to keep happy.

“That’s not true,” Sam said.

“It is,” Dean promised. “You’ll see.” He thought for a few seconds, and then said, "Maybe we can heat up the apple juice."

“Keep up, boys,” said John’s voice, from too far away. Dean realised he must have slowed down as he’d talked to Sam, even though he’d been trying to hold a steady pace. He reached for Sam’s hand, turning his head at the same time to call back to his father – and as he did so, he felt his balance betray him. His feet slipped in the slush, and in a rush he was a jumble of elbows and knees hitting the ground in all the wrong places.

For a second he sat still, assessing the damage. Nothing broken.

“Are you okay?” Sam said, the dish of his face looking pale and worried above Dean.

“I’m fine… ugh.”

“Get up,” John called, and when Dean turned his head to look, he saw that his father was turning away to keep walking. Dean scrambled to his feet, hands out for balance. His hip ached – he’d landed on it.

“I’m alright,” Dean said to Sam, pulling on a smile. “Let’s go.”

He hurried after John, making sure Sam was beside him, going as fast as he dared until they were right behind their father. His knee was starting to throb, too, and he kept it off his face carefully, because Sam was still glancing up at him.

“Saw you reach for your brother when you were falling,” John grunted. “Don’t do that. If you two’re on your own and both of you go down, you’re both dead. If Sam’s still up, he can go for help.”

“I wasn’t –” Dean tried to say.

“Don’t do it,” John repeated, more forcefully.

They walked on in silence.

––––-

And now Dean was twenty-one years old and stepping out into the brisk air of a winter evening, with his head a little light from the drinks he’d had in the bar at his back.

“Come on,” Cassie said from beside him, her eyes bright with laughter. “You can tell me.”

“Hey, we’ve been through this,” Dean said, as they began to make their way down the street, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“As if you could,” Cassie said.

Dean glanced over at her smile, and thought about the way the shifter he’d taken out earlier that day had looked at him, right before he’d swung the blade through her neck. He swallowed hard.

“I might,” he said, and held his arms a little out from his body. “How long can I contain this much raw aggression, you know?”

“Stop," Cassie said, nudging him with her shoulder. “Seriously, okay, just tell me what your job is.”

“Is it really worth your life?” Dean asked, putting on his most serious face.

“You’re really trying to tell me you’re, what – a spy? A fed?” Cassie asked. “C’mon, you can’t expect me to believe that. With that face?”

“Hey,” Dean said, mock-offended, as they passed closed-up stores and parking bays. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing,” Cassie said, “that’s literally the problem. The FBI don’t hire people who look like you, do they? This is real life, not HBO.”

“Okay,” Dean said, his face working not to look too pleased. Underfoot, the pavement was shiny with ice. Dean started to walk a little slower. “So, if this isn’t the face of a fed, what is it the face of?”

“Mmm. Radio show host?” Cassie laughed when Dean threw her a look. “Well, c’mon, how am I supposed to know? Third date and you still won’t tell me?”

“Just trying to keep the mystery alive,” Dean said, faking an absent kind of tone in the hope that Cassie would drop the subject. The sidewalk was getting more and more treacherous, each of his steps sliding just a little.

“The mystery is too alive,” Cassie said. “It could die a bit. I’d be okay with that.”

“Whoa… careful.” Dean’s foot slipped out from under him, and he only managed to keep his balance by grabbing onto a parking meter that happened to be close by.

“Easy, big shot.” Cassie watched him start to move again, even more tentatively. “Wouldn’t wanna lose the deal with HBO if you fall on that perfect face.”

There was an edge of hurt to her tone of voice, and Dean jaw tightened. Was he ever going to tell her, he wondered. Surely not. She’d hate it. Spending time with Cassie was like visiting a parallel universe. That world didn’t have room for monsters under the bed.

And so Dean kicked them back underneath as hard as he could, and smiled at Cassie, and held out his hand.

Cassie looked down at it, and then back up at him.

“Really?” she said, a smile waiting at the corners of her mouth.

“It’s slippery,” Dean said, and wiggled his fingers temptingly.

“Yeah,” Cassie said with a laugh, pushing his hand away, “it is, asshole. That’s why I’m not letting you take me down with you.”

––––-

And now Dean was thirty-one years old and watching a soccer game, gloves on, hat on, clapping along with the dark-haired woman next to him.

“Come on, Ben!” called Lisa.

“Like we practised, okay, kid?” Dean added, and watched Ben’s face relax into concentration as he placed the ball for his free kick, just a yard outside the penalty box.

“You practised free kicks with him?” Lisa said to Dean, sounding like she was holding back a laugh. Dean glanced down at her; she had her eyes on her son, but there was a little smile on her face.

“A couple times,” Dean said. “He asked.”

“That’s sweet. And I thought you two just watched TV and ate too much pizza together.”

“We do that too,” Dean said. “When I have a say in it.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them up. On either side of Lisa and Dean, also at the edge of the soccer pitch, were other parents all waiting on Ben to take his kick. They were standing on wet grass, a few of them stamping their feet to keep them from going numb.

Ben took a short run up, swung his leg, made contact. The ball sailed high, dipped – and the goalie caught it neatly.

“Next time,” Dean called out when Ben’s face fell, and gave him a clap. The game played on.

“God, it’s cold,” Lisa said.

“You want my coat?”

Lisa looked up at him, her big brown eyes soft.

“You’re cute, you know that?”

“... Right.” Dean smiled awkwardly. Lisa’s would-be compliment hung in the air, sounding more incongruous the longer Dean stood tense and unmoving.

Lisa reached out, and put her hand on his folded arms.

“You wanna order in, tonight?” she said lightly. “Or I could make fajitas.”

“I can cook,” Dean said. “I’ll make burgers.”

“Mmm. Twist my arm.”

Some small burst of relief, there. Dean’s expression eased. He put his hands in his pockets, lifted his chin, as though remembering the role he was playing. Who he was, now.

He shifted his feet – and felt his right foot slide, almost right out from under him. He steadied himself, hands out to the sides, looking down at the grass.

“Careful,” Lisa said.

“Jesus,” Dean said at the same time.

“Come here,” Lisa said, holding out her hand.

Dean smiled.

“It’s all good,” he said, reaching out and giving the hand a squeeze, and then letting go quickly.

“Can’t have the head chef breaking his arm,” Lisa said, her hand still out.

“It’s fine, really.”

“Dean, would you hold my hand?”

“We’ll both go over,” Dean said.

“Mm-mm. I’ll hold you up.”

Her expression allowed no argument. Unwillingly, Dean allowed her to loop their arms together, Lisa pinning Dean to her side and turning back to the game, calling out to support Ben as he went for a tackle. Dean stood quietly. He was having to lean down ever so slightly so that Lisa could keep his arm tucked under hers.

He tried very hard not to move. Just the smallest slide of his feet and he’d be over and he’d take her with him. Every muscle in his legs was clenched, forcing himself not to slip.

After just a minute or so of stiff silence, Lisa sighed.

“Okay,” she said, “you win.”

She let go.

––––-

And now Dean was forty-one years old and walking down a street in Lebanon, Kansas, on legs that still felt a little new. The cold air was harsh; he took in a deep breath.

He went to cross the road, and a car gave a screech as it swerved suddenly to avoid him. The driver made a few different gestures at him through the window, and Dean held up a hand in apology.

It was easy to forget that things didn’t part and make way on Earth like they had done in Heaven.

“Couldn’t fix that for me, could you?” Dean said aloud. “Not that I’m not grateful for the ticket home, Cas, but Heaven had its perks.”

Silence. Dean kept walking, with only the slightest slump to his shoulders and crease on his brow. Lebanon was wearing snow like a big white coat. Dean’s boots crunched in it when he stepped off the gritted path to let a mother with a stroller go by.

“I should probably stop expecting to see you round every corner, huh,” he said. “Been a week now. And I keep wandering around thinking you might show up just ‘cause I’m looking.” Someone passing gave him a slightly frightened look and a wide berth as he walked by, talking to himself. Just another thing no one had much noticed in Heaven: the prayers. Dean frowned, and ducked his head. Tucked his hands in his pockets.

He walked quietly for some time.

Long enough for his hands to come back out of his pockets, and his shoulders to lose their self-conscious hunch. Long enough for the hurt in his eyes to seem nearer the surface.

“Might not even have been you that got me out of Heaven,” Dean said, his tone quiet, as though picking up the thread of a half-finished conversation.

A pause, in which he walked. Passed by other people, made no eye contact. Dean meandered a little as he went, as though his mind were elsewhere.

“If you’re angry, you could just tell me,” he said. “God knows I’d get it.”

He glanced to his left and right before crossing a road, his eyes lingering on the faces nearest him, as though he were looking for someone.

“Cas, just talk to me,” he said. The words were so quiet that no human but Dean himself heard them. He was still watching around him, waiting, but nothing happened.

He put his hands into his pockets again. Walked with his shoulders set a little lower.

“It’s not…” Dean muttered, a broken-off answer to a thought inside his head. “Just – I don’t know what you want me to do. Can you hear me thinking about you? ‘Cause it’s all the time, man. I don’t know what to do. Last time I saw you, you told me… but now you aren’t even…”

He rounded a corner and began to cross a small parking lot.

“If you’d just come here. You could tell me what I’m supposed to do. All I want is…” Dean’s eyes searched the backs of the cars he passed as if their number plates were esoteric texts with all the answers, all the things he needed to say. He breathed out. “I don’t know how, man, I don’t know what to do.”

He swallowed.

“It feels like I have to do something, though.”

He kept walking.

“Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to.”

He breathed out.

Emotions were crossing his face, too fast to catch one alone, too swift to parse. He looked down at his feet, watching where he stepped.

“If I had what I wanted,” he said, “you’d be here.” After a pause, he rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s news to you. Like, wow, right? Not as though I’ve ever asked, after all.” Another silence, and then he said, “But you know, I – it’s not that I just want to… fix it, or… finish things off. It’s not… I’m not…” He pressed his lips together, smiled wryly. “Jesus. I hope you can’t hear this. I’m not making any sense. I’m just trying to say, I want you here, man. I want you here to stay.”

A little flicker of light seemed to touch Dean’s eyes.

“You could stay now,” he said, “right? You could actually stay. If you wanted to. And we could…” He stopped. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

A car drove by, and the child in the backseat stared out the window at him. Dean blinked back to reality.

“We didn’t have time to think about what we wanted,” he said into the quiet of the parking lot, when the car had passed and he was walking again. “All this time. Or maybe you did. But I didn’t.” He looked upwards, towards the iron sky. “And now there’s time, Cas, and all I’m thinking about is you.” He looked down. “I said that already.”

He moved on, stepping out the other side of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk.

“I remember you said that the… the thing you want, you can’t have.” Dean took in a breath and let it go. “I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t. Whatever it is, man, you deserve it.”

His feet carried him onward.

“You gotta be sick of hearing me talk at this point. But I just…” Dean’s eyes glanced over the snowy Lebanon street in front of him, and he crossed the road. “I just want you here. Maybe I should take a damn hint.” His voice strained, hurt betraying the attempt at levity in his tone. “But you said… I keep thinking back on what you said. About how you feel. And I, uh. You know. If you’d just let me…”

Dean lifted his hands, a little helplessly, into the air as he walked, as though wanting to give something invisible to someone who wasn’t there. He dropped them awkwardly, his expression creasing.

He was circling back around towards the mall, his footsteps pointing him towards home. He looked heavy, weary. The lines on his face were deep, and his eyes were unfocused, lost in thought.

The people around him paid him no attention. He was just part of the crowd. They swirled across his path and around him, irrelevant to him, not seeing him. Except –

Dean came to a sudden stop. His gaze sharpened.

Twenty feet away from him, standing completely still, was a figure. Not struggling with carrier bags or strollers or wallets and keys like the other shoppers going into and out of the mall. Utterly stone still.

Tall, almost as tall as Dean. Wearing a long coat. Brown-haired. Impassive.

Watching Dean as though waiting for him.

And Dean visibly blossomed. His mouth fell slightly open, his shoulders loosened, one hand reached out unconsciously.

“Cas?” he said, disbelieving – and Dean saw a slight smile appear on Castiel’s face, and the angel slightly raised one hand in greeting.

Warmth touched Dean’s eyes, rising up as though from a great depth. He began to move, at first taking care on the slippery sidewalk. But his feet hurried him, and he was walking fast and then he was almost running, caution forgotten, eyes on Castiel’s.

It was when he was only a few steps away that his foot hit a patch of black ice. His arms went out, struggling to balance him – Castiel moved forward, one hand out – Dean reached for him on instinct, grasping his arm, his body relaxing in obvious expectation of Castiel being able to pull him upright –

But Castiel’s weight tilted along with Dean’s, and the ground gave them both a hard and cold welcome. There were some muttered _ooohs_ from people passing by, and a few of them came to awkward stops nearby.

Dean landed hard on his back, head hitting the cement. He stared for a moment up at the sky. It had all happened very fast.

He sat up, and saw Castiel kneeling beside him, inspecting his own hands.

“Fuck,” Dean said. He put a hand to the back of his head. No blood.

“Are you okay?” said someone behind Dean, and he waved them off.

“All good,” he said, seeing in his peripheral vision that the people who’d stopped to look were moving on. He looked at Castiel. “Are you… you’re…”

Castiel stopped staring down at his hands, and looked at Dean instead. His blue eyes searched Dean’s face. Under his gaze, Dean smiled – a smile that grew on his face from a tiny brightness in his eyes until his whole face was alight with it.

“It’s you,” he said. "Damn, Cas, it's really you."

“It’s me,” Castiel confirmed. His voice held a recognition of Dean’s smile, a reciprocal warmth.

“You’re here.”

“I heard you,” Castiel said.

“You heard me? Just now?”

“Yes.”

Dean nodded. He was breathing a little fast. His gaze searched Castiel’s face, partly seeming to be looking for something, partly seeming already to have found it. People were stepping around them to get inside the mall.

“It’s good to see you,” Dean said.

Castiel smiled too, at last.

“But you know,” Dean added, “you could’ve just appeared right next to me instead of a whole freaking mile away on a slippery sidewalk. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“Ah.” Castiel, still on his knees beside where Dean was sitting, dropped his gaze. “That was, in fact, not under my control. Jack sent me down here. After I asked him to do something for me.”

Castiel looked down at his hands again, and this time Dean looked too. His expression broke into slight surprise when he saw red on Castiel’s palms, at the sight of the blood – and then the surprise came in a second, deeper wave, as realisation hit.

“Cas,” he said.

“Just a graze,” Castiel said calmly.

“But you – you’re – that’s not supposed to happen,” Dean said. He reached out, and took Castiel’s hands in his own, inspecting the little scrapes on the skin. “You can’t get hurt like this.”

“Well,” Castiel said, “I can, now.”

“But you’re…” Dean stared at Castiel, seeming suddenly caught in consternation.

“Staying,” Castiel finished for him.

Wide-eyed, still sitting on the sidewalk, Dean took this in. Something light crossed his face, then anger, then confusion.

“I heard you,” Castiel reminded him. Dean stared at him.

“What I said?”

“Yes.”

“About staying?”

“Yes.”

“And you… you want that?”

Despite the hustle of people around them, the crunch-crunch of their boots in the snow and the harshness of their voices, Dean and Castiel might have been the only two people in the world when Castiel said,

“Yes, Dean.”

“So, but – before, in the bunker, with the Empty, when you said – the thing – the thing you said you wanted –”

Castiel looked down at their hands. Dean’s holding Castiel’s.

Dean tightened his grip.

“Just that?” he said, his voice sounding thick.

Castiel said nothing, words seeming to fail him.

They stared at each other. Hands in hands, touching, Castiel bleeding. Dean didn’t let go.

“It’s yours,” Dean said roughly.

“You mean…” Castiel’s eyes were suddenly wide. “You mean that you…”

“Since pretty much day one. I just never thought you’d want that from me.”

The world moved past and around them. They didn’t notice. Castiel was radiating happiness in every body line, though he was unmoving. Dean was watching him as though afraid he might disappear in the space of a blink.

"Is this real?" he said. "My head hurts enough for it to be real."

Castiel nodded.

“You’re really staying,” Dean said.

“As long as you’ll let me.”

After enough time under the steadiness of Castiel’s gaze, it seemed finally to sink in for Dean – the truth of it, the reality of it. Dean breathed out.

He swallowed. He looked down.

He smiled.

“We should get home, then,” he said.

Castiel didn’t say anything, but he gave a nod made small by emotion.

“Oh. I’m sorry, though,” Dean said, his eyes catching on Castiel’s small injuries now that he was looking down again. His thumb lightly touched the place where blood was drying on Castiel’s palm. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have run at you.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel said, getting to his feet and pulling Dean up with him, their hands not letting go.

“I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Don’t be,” Castiel said, his blood on Dean’s hands, and still holding them. “Don’t be.”

**Author's Note:**

> when that angel said "fallen in every way imaginable" I think eating it on the sidewalk right outside a mall was definitely a part of that


End file.
